The history of Wallingford, in the county of Berks, from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the present time Volume 1; With an account of its castle, ... of adjacent parts, and an attempt to fix - John Kirby Hedges, Paperback

• Release Date   5/21/2012
• ISBN-13   9781236414892 | 978-1-236-41489-2
• ISBN   1236414896 | 1-236-41489-6
• Format   Paperback
• Author(s)   John Kirby Hedges
• This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881 Excerpt: ...as we are told by Ralfe Brook, " William was a verie proud and lewde liver." f But we must look to other reasons as the probable cause of Stigand's absence from the coronation. He had placed the crown on Harold's head. he had anointed Edgar as king, and regarded him as his special charge. and he hoped to the last, as Dr. Hook tells us, that his countrymen would rise and expel the Norman, and reassert the Saxon dominion. Notwithstanding the marked respect and reverence which the Conqueror is said to have shown to this bishop, there must have been, we may reasonably suppose, a latent feeling of distrust towards him, and an unwillingness to receive, at the hands of the Saxon, the unction which, according to tho principles of the age, was the only important part of a coronation, and carried with it a sort of superstitious solemnity. Stigand must have been equally reluctant to perform an act which implied, if it did not evidence, allegiance to the Norman crown. This mutuality of sentiment probably led to the withdrawal of the archbishop from the ceremony. But it was not long before open hostility manifested itself. At the instance of the king and the pope, Chron. Wig., 1066. t "Catalogue of Kings and Princes," by Ralfe Brook, York Herald, 1622. VOL. I. 0 Stigand was deposed, and afterwards arrested and condemned to perpetual seclusion in a prison at Winchester, where he died broken-hearted, without the common necessaries of life. But to return to Wigod. Great desolation followed the Norman Conquest, and many of the chief families were reduced to a state of comparative destitution, "and found no asylum but in the cloister." Wigod retained his great possessions. and this retention has subjected him to the imputation of having resorted...